Most large businesses (and many smaller businesses and organizations) employ one or more business applications, and in some cases, suites of business applications, to provide visibility and control over various aspects of the business. Such “business applications” (or, as they are sometimes called, “enterprise applications”) can include, without limitation, customer relations management (“CRM”) applications, enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) applications, supply chain management applications, and other applications dealing with various finance, accounting, manufacturing, and/or distribution functions, to name but a few examples. Exemplary enterprise application suites include, without limitation, the Oracle eBusiness Suite™ and JD Edwards Enterprise One™, both of which are available from Oracle Corp.
In many cases, a business application works in conjunction with one or more databases, which store information created and/or used by the business application. In order to provide visibility into business processes, a business application (and/or a separate application working alongside the business application) can be used to query the database with queries designed to provide information about that business process. This information can be used to ensure that business processes are optimized, identify opportunities for increased efficiency, enhance customer relationships, ensure that specific resources and/or supply chains are not introducing inefficiency, verify the quality of outputs, and/or the like.
Merely by way of example, many organizations employ ERP software to provide visibility into manufacturing processes. In many cases, this visibility is provided through the use of preconfigured display grids, which can provide details about various manufacturing processes, the results of those processes, the inputs to those processes, and/or the like. A display grid can be used, for example, to allow a plant manager to view real-time (and/or near real-time) information about products being produced by manufacturing processes at the plant. Such information can include, without limitation, information about the raw materials and/or components used to create the products, information about the operation of machines used in the manufacturing process, information about quality assurance testing of the manufactured products, and/or the like.
Because each business operates differently, however, “one-size-fits-all” solutions are difficult to provide. This situation arises, at least in part, out of the difficulty in foreseeing the specific needs of different businesses when developing business applications. Accordingly, many businesses are forced either to expend significant resources to customize a business application or to forgo customization and use an off-the-shelf business application in a suboptimal manner.